Recap of Today in Politics, 10/14

News, notes, insights, and political gossip

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… Trump began his day firing off several angry and unhinged posts on Truth Social, attacking Harris as cognitively declined and lacking stamina in one of his obvious cases of projection yet from the Projection King. He then trashed The Apprentice movie as a “cheap, defamatory, disgusting hatchet job,” making everyone who hasn’t seen it yet want to check it out.

… Time Magazine owner Marc Benioff complained that Harris wouldn’t do a sit-down interview with them for their profile piece on her. The tech oligarchs who bought up dying and entitled legacy media outlets continue to complain as they circle the drain of relevance.

… Harris will, however, be doing her first Fox interview. She has agreed to a sit-down with Bret Baier on Wednesday. Baier can be an extremely though interviewer when he wants to be (like June 2023 when he cut Trump to shreds with pointed, direct questions and follow ups), or a cream puff like his Trump Town Hall. Don’t expect to see Cream Puff Bret in this one.

… Regardless of how well Baier conducts this interview, expect the malignant narcissist in Mar-a-Lago to blast him for not being tough enough.

… 1 hour after Baier posted about he interview on Twitter, he had over 2,200 comments - almost all from right-wingers demanding that he go after Harris and accusing him of giving her the questions ahead of time and secretly wanting her to beat Trump. You can read my story about their comments here. You can’t ever please these people.

… Unclear what the upside is here for Harris. Probably not going to win over many votes with Fox viewers regardless of how well she does. Republicans are spinning this as a sign of desperation for her campaign. Maybe Harris is confident she will do well, clips of it will play on local stations and swing states, and the myth that she is afraid of tough interviews will be dispelled once and for all. A very high-risk move with Fox’s best interviewer.

… Trump posted on Truth Social four hours after the announcement of the Harris interview that Baier is too “weak and soft” on Democrats and he would have preferred one of their “hard hitting journalists” to do the interview. Trump is doing what Trump does, leading the MAGA pressure campaign on Baier to be unfair.

… Meanwhile, Trump did his latest Fox Town Hall in the Philly suburbs tonight with puppy killer Kristi Noem. In the middle of it, Trump called migrants “sick puppies coming from other countries.” Noem got that gleam in her eye that said she wanted to be appointed DHS Secretary if that was the case. She knows how to deal with puppies.

… Ted Cruz went on Mark Levin’s show to cry that he was being massively outspent by Colin Allred and Mitch McConnell refuses to spend a penny to help him because he hates Ted. Ted said that Chuck Schumer has gone all in and buried him with ads for the past three months, and he hasn’t been able to respond because he doesn’t have the money. He said Mitch has $400 million but won’t spend any of it on poor Ted. You can read my story on this here.

… The VP candidates make their swings through the midwest today, with Walz launching a bus tour in WI and Vance doing appearances in MN, IL, and Iowa.

… The Harris rally in Erie, PA tonight was packed and rocking.

… Elon Musk is facing more consequences for his outrageous false posts about FEMA. The California Coastal Commission has denied permission for Musk to fire up to 50 rockets a year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara county. Gavin Newsom citing Musk’s repeated false statements on social media and a “profiteer hungry for government support while maintaining a poor record of labor and safety violations at his company.

… Lara Trump’s boat parade yesterday in Florida included a boat filled with Neo-Nazis proudly flying their Trump and MAGA flags. One gave a shout-out to Mike Lindell while another who appeared to be a woman was wearing a Moms for Liberty shirt. The rest of the parade wasn’t much better. You can read our story about that here.

… Ron Desantis’s newly created “Elections Crimes and Security” agencies issued a report today claiming that over 16% of the signatures obtained to get the abortion rights amendment on the ballot next month should be invalidated. It is his latest move to use the resources and power of the state to defeat democracy. It’s clear he is setting up a legal challenge if it passes, or he may file a lawsuit even before the election. You can read my story about that here.

… Internal polling from the Republican Senate Leadership fund shows that the Democrats’ Senate candidates continue to poll significantly better in their home states than presidential candidate - whether it was Biden or Harris. A decent chunk of Republicans in states like Ohio, Montana, Arizona, Nevada and Michigan like their Senators and are willing to cross over to vote for him. There could be a decent sized sliver of Trump/Dem Senator voters in those states.

… Based on this internal polling, it continues to look like control of the Senate will come down to two races: Montana and Texas, with Dems needing to win one of the two. They will either need to hold Tester’s seat (unlikely) or pull the upset in Texas (could happen). If you told most experts a year ago that Dems would have better chance beating Cruz than holding Tester, they would’ve said you were crazy.

… Big turnout in The Villages in Florida for Harris, as the golf cart line to drop off mail-in ballots stretched back for a mile. Just about everyone in The Villages uses golf carts as their preferred mode of transportation. The massive central Florida planned community is a city in itself, and has always been a Republican stronghold where a small number of Dems felt under siege. Maybe the tide is turning???

… Joe Rogan has repeatedly said over the past several months that he would not have Trump on his podcast. The former RFK Jr. supporter reportedly said that he didn’t like Trump and didn’t want to do him any favors. But there has been intense lobbying behind the scenes from people like Musk and other Trump supporters who know Rogan, and Trump said that he will be doing Rogan but didn’t give specifics.

… A Rogan sit-down is something the Trump campaign has wanted badly for a long time since they view Rogan’s audience as a group of white males who don’t always turn out to vote as key to overcoming their shortcomings with women voters. Boosting turnout with youngish white men appears to be the strategy down the stretch.

… Kamala Harris is running a new ad in Arizona featuring Mesa’s Republican Mayor John Giles, who has previously endorsed her. Mesa is the 3rd largest city in AZ after Phoenix and Tucson. The ad launches Harris’s final $370 million ad blitz in swing states between now until election day.

… Mike Rogers is polling badly against popular Democratic incumbent Senator Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, and it won’t get much better for him after he was pummeled by